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You're reading Leading Software People, a curated newsletter for people who are managing software teams, brought to you by Status Hero. We hope you find it helpful! (And if you do, please spread the word - we really appreciate it!)

Leadership & Management

Lighthouse covers a step by step process to turn around your team even in the darkest of days as a bad leader. When things aren’t going well on your team, deep down you know it. To turn things around is not easy, but it can be done.

The phrase “you have to pick and choose your battles” is common. But, how do you decide? Jeanette Head of Atomic Object explains how to pick them, how to recognize winning and losing scenarios, and why choosing a losing battle sometimes is the right move.

Helge Tennø of jokull.io discusses how the command and control management approach leads to top-management destroying their best employees' ability to create value. Leadership needs to think like a gardener, not a chess master.

Clear communication is a critical element of any successful team, yet it can also be one of the biggest roadblocks in moving projects forward. Susannah Shipton of Artsy looks back on some communication fails that she has experienced, describing what she's learned and how to improve.

At some design firms and studios, project teams can sometimes look like small armies with a rotating cast of characters siloed in their specific roles. The team at Moment describes how they do things a bit differently, including opting to forgo traditional project management.

Only Slightly Off-Topic

Keith Collins of Quartz provides a brief history lesson on the code for the Apollo Guidance Computer, developed for the Apollo 11 space program in the 1960s. The comments are full of light-hearted jokes, messages, and very 1960s references, including interesting declarations like "# TEMPORARY, I HOPE HOPE HOPE".